The Weekly Rhythm #7: Time for a confession.

Welcome to the Weekly Rhythm!

I’ve got a confession to make.

The reason I’m sharing this with you is because the remedy to what I’m feeling is the same remedy that dads need to hear. Last week I asked my followers on Twitter about difficulties they experience as a father. A desire to escape and walk away was mentioned. So I took a poll.

I realize this is a small sample but more than 50% of responds have thought about wanting to escape. There’s a desire to give up and walk away. I’m not going to map that number as representative of all men but it does show that there’s at least a portion of fathers who are struggling.

Let me tell you, I am struggling, too. January 1st, 2023 I made the decision that I would start writing online. It’s a world full of promise but it’s also a world with a lack of clarity. There is a lot of noise and a lot of free giveaways to help you get there. There are courses and ebooks to buy and I’ve read fewer than I’ve bought (I have read some!).

Some days I sit in front of Twitter or this newsletter and ask, what the heck am I doing? Why am I doing this?

I’m dealing with self-doubt. I’m dealing with a lack of clarity about the path. My attention feels fractured in several different directions and it’s difficult to focus on things. The reality is that this is a test. This valley I’m in is difficult because I can’t see from the top of the mountain. I can’t even see the path to the top. Maybe it’s in one of the ebooks I haven’t read yet.

One of the reasons we can get to a place of stagnancy is that we become information gluttons. We feast on news and tweets and notifications and grow fat on them. We become like a guy I saw in Dollar General this weekend. His arms were like arcs as they rested at his side because they couldn’t lie flat. His breathing was labored and it looked like it hurt to have his eyes open due to the weight around his face. He knocked a lighter off a display and left it on the floor. If he had bent over to pick it up, his center of gravity would have toppled him over. I don’t want to crash on this guy because I don’t know his story but I also want whatever his story was to be a cautionary tale.

We take in so much and then don’t do anything with it. What was consumed in survival instinct was never worn off in having to survive.

The point is we all get in valleys where we don’t see the peaks. We don’t have the clarity to survey all that’s true from the top of the mountain. With a view like that, we can get a proper perspective but we don’t have it now. If we try to escape, we’ll never learn the pathfinding skill to get us out of these valleys. We’ll never get out if we are bogged down in learning and research. There comes a time where we must act on SOMETHING. Pick one area and improve it. I know it’s hard but we’ve got to get out of the gravitational pull of inaction.

My dad once gave me advice that is simple but not easy. “Never give up.”

I’m going to keep writing. If you’re one of the dads who feels like they want to escape, keep being there for your family. Keep taking action. Keep going. Keep digging in. Keep trying and when you fail, fail forward into something new instead of being define by that failure.

For you to think about this week:

1. Do you ever feel like giving up?

2. Are you an information glutton?

For you to act on this week:

1. What is ONE thing you can focus on taking action with this week? Think of one element of that big giant vision or project that’s a manageable task and commit to making progress with it.

2. Bonus, if you feel comfortable doing so, reply to this email and share with me what that one thing is.

I like to think of encouragement as being able to fill someone with courage. “You can do it” is not always encouraging because the one who needs to hear it often feels that can’t do it. Cast the vision and call them to action. Lord knows I need to hear it too. We’re building rhythms here and the world needs us.

That’s it for this week! Next week, I’ll tell you about a new rhythm I’m trying to get started in the family.

Talk to you soon!

~ J.P.

Book Update: Current victim of my lack of focus. What I’m going to write about next week is part of what needs to be added to the book.